I got a ticket once while living in Texas. I needed to make a U-Turn. I pulled into the left turn lane, and looked up to see a No U-TURN sign. I turned anyways.
When the officer asked me, “Did you see the no U-turn sign back there?“, I played dumb. I answered, “no officer” with my best puppy-dog-eyes, and with the utmost respect. He wrote me a ticket, anyways.
You may be interested to hear what the ticket was for. Making an illegal U-Turn? No. He wrote me a ticket for ignoring a traffic signal.
Several years later, I was pulled over for not stopping completely at a stop sign. When the officer pulled me over, he asked me, “Did you see that Stop Sign back there?” I said, “Yes sir, I know there’s a stop sign back there, I see it every night... did I not stop?”. He let me off with a warning.
You see, I had learned a valuable lesson. It seems that, in Texas, it’s sometimes OK to break the rules, but its never OK to not know what the rules are. Ignorance is not an excuse, and stupidity carries a stiff fine.
